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Imagine, if you will, that the Stuarts have ii children, Kylie and Frederick. Kylie was born in 1997 and Frederick was born in 2001, both in Toledo, Ohio. The Stuarts mensurate Kylie's height when she reaches the jump of fourth grade, in 2007, and larn that she is 52" alpine, or iv'4".

Shortly thereafter, the family moves from Toledo to Kansas City, Mo., and Mrs. Stuart decides to modify the family unit's diet, reducing the red meat content and calculation more whole grains and fresh fruit. When Frederick is in the spring of his 4th-grade year, in 2011, the Stuarts mensurate his height. They find that Frederick is 54" tall, or 4'6"—two inches taller than Kylie was at the aforementioned historic period.

Mrs. Stuart is ecstatic. "The family unit's height has grown over time!" she exclaims. "Our 4th-grader's height in 2007 was 52 inches, and our fourth-grader in 2011 was 54 inches alpine. That's growth over time!" Dizzy, she says, "And I'chiliad certain that the growth is because of the change in diet. It actually works! If other families did this, their kids would grow just as much as ours did from 2007 to 2011!"

Mrs. Stuart may not know it, but she has a time to come in politics. The mangled logic on which she relies is no different than what emerged last calendar week from the mouths of well-known policymakers upon the release of the 2013 scores on the National Cess of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Every 2 years, the federal government assesses a sample of 4th- and eighth-course children in reading and mathematics in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as students in a sample of urban schoolhouse districts. When the scores are released, policymakers and pundits scramble to interpret the results, frequently putting their own spin on the differences in operation betwixt different years.

One common mistake, reflected in Mrs. Stuart's logic, is to treat the difference between the scores in a given administration and those in the previous assistants every bit an indicator of growth or reject. As Matt Di Carlo has repeatedly warned, the fourth-graders in Arkansas in 2013 are not the same students as the fourth-graders in Arkansas in 2011—just as the quaternary-grader in the Stuart family in 2011, Frederick, is not the same child as the fourth-grader in the Stuart family in 2007, Kylie.

Fifty-fifty if NAEP relies on a representative sample of fourth-graders in a state in a given yr, the demographic composition of the children in any state will modify over time, so that features of the 4th-graders in Arkansas in 2013 will differ a bit from the students who were in fourth grade in 2011. These changes in demography could account for differences in the boilerplate performance of Arkansas fourth-graders in 2011 and 2013.

We typically call up of "growth" equally an aspect of individuals, and my example of a child'due south height is intended to dramatize this. Change in the attributes of an private over time may point growth or reject. Simply NAEP does non mensurate the aforementioned individual at two points in time. Instead, information technology measures different individuals at each cess.

And the second big error, of form, is Mrs. Stuart's claim that the change in diet accounts for the fact that the family'south fourth-grader in 2011 is taller than the family's fourth-grader in 2007. In that location's really no way to pivot this down, because at that place are and so many differences in the experiences of Kylie and Frederick that might matter. Heck, perchance in that location'south less smog in Kansas Metropolis, or better schools, or more than opportunities for organized sports. Diet may be a plausible explanation, just it is scarcely the simply explanation. Just someone untutored in the logic of social-science research would firmly say, "The nutrition is working!"

Which brings the states to Arne Duncan, John Male monarch, Jr. and Merryl Tisch. Teaching Secretarial assistant Duncan was intent on linking the gains observed in iii locales—the District of Columbia, Hawaii and Tennessee—to the funds they received from the Race to the Height competition, and the resulting implementation of the Common Core curriculum and statewide teacher evaluation systems. Catherine Gewertz of Education Week quotes Duncan, in a pre-release conference call, equally saying, "Tennessee, D.C. and Hawaii have done some really tough, hard work and it's showing some pretty remarkable dividends." (Apparently, no other states are doing tough, hard work—or at least no other states merit a mention. Especially not other states that adopted the Common Core standards long before the 2013 assessment, or other states receiving Race to the Summit funds.)

And in New York, Country Pedagogy Commissioner John Male monarch, Jr. and Chancellor of the Board of Regents Merryl Tisch issued a articulation statement reaffirming their commitment to the state'south didactics reform agenda—because of the NAEP results in Tennessee and the Commune of Columbia.

"What happened in Tennessee and Washington, D.C., tin can happen here," Male monarch said. "Tennessee and Washington, D.C., are out in front end on meaningful teacher and primary evaluations, and the NAEP results bear witness that those evaluations, along with the shift to the Common Cadre, are helping students learn more."

Setting aside i obvious effect—that 44 per centum of the children in District of Columbia Public Schools attend charters, which do non employ DCPS's teacher and chief evaluation systems—the notion that any has been happening in Tennessee and Washington, D.C., can exist attributed to educator evaluation systems and the shift to the Common Core is just as ludicrous as Mrs. Stuart'southward claim that "The diet is working!" But King and Tisch are unswayed. "It'southward simply more evidence that New York needs to stay on this road," said the Commissioner.

If the U.Southward. Department of Education or the New York State Education Section e'er denote an opening for Chief Disinformation Officer, I retrieve Mrs. Stuart should utilise.

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Aaron Pallas is Professor of Sociology and Education at Teachers Higher, Columbia University. He has also taught at Johns Hopkins University, Michigan State University, and Northwestern University, and... More by Aaron Pallas